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Newly Released Video Shows Police Response at UNLV Campus Shooting

December 21st, 1:00 PM EST

By NEWSnet Digital Team

LAS VEGAS (NEWSnet/AP) — Officers shouted over blaring alarms and answered questions on their location while responding to a deadly shooting Dec. 6 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, body camera footage released Wednesday showed.

In one video, police officers moved hastily through the university’s business school amid a loud, piercing sound and called out for the alarm to be cut off.

Commands were difficult to hear and, one officer noted, there was “blood everywhere” near a doorway on the fifth floor, the footage showed.

[Earlier Report: UNLV Gunman Had 150 Rounds and a Target List, Police Say]

The suspect, Anthony Polito, was killed in a shootout with police outside the building about 10 minutes after fatally shooting three professors, police later said.

Reports of gunfire well after Polito’s death turned out to be the sounds of police trying to break down locked doors to clear classrooms and offices, evacuate students and assess any remaining threats.

The more than five hours of video made public Wednesday was the first of several releases by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, which is leading the investigation. Police have not disclosed a motive for the shooting.

The three professors were inside the business school when they were killed. They are:

Naoko Takemaru, 69, an author and associate professor of Japanese studies.
Cha Jan “Jerry” Chang, 64, an associate professor in the business school’s Management, Entrepreneurship & Technology department.
Patricia Navarro Velez, 39, an accounting professor focusing on research in cybersecurity disclosures and data analytics.

While police searched door to door in the business school and surrounding buildings, fears about a second shooter continued for more than 40 minutes, according to the videos.

At one point, a dispatcher is heard on a police sergeant’s radio relaying a report that someone was “shooting through the wall.” Another officer quickly responds, saying: “That’s us. We’re breaching doors. There are no shots fired.”